


love on a wire

by becuille



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, First Time, Force Bond (Star Wars), Moral Ambiguity, Mustafar, Mutual Pining, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Sex Dreams, Smut, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, maybe a redemption, mentions of canon-typical violence, warning for mentions of child slavery and kidnapping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-14 06:41:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13584438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/becuille/pseuds/becuille
Summary: As theSupremacywent down, a wall was erected between them. A year later when Rey flies for what remains of the Resistance, an encounter creates an opening in both their minds for the bond to reach through.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [second_chances](https://archiveofourown.org/users/second_chances/gifts).



> Prompt: Benperor taking up residence in his granddaddy's lava palace on mustafar for a while and Rey ends up there somehow (either for real or through the force bond) and SEXY TIMES ENSUE????
> 
> Happy Valentine's Day second_chances! (whose fics I adore and I totally didn't feel any pressure gifting for), hope you like it!♡

The Resistance fighters fall into formation. They are a shadow of what they once were, low in numbers and in an assorted mismatch of old Alliance ships and Republic hand-me-downs. Rey holds up the right wing of the Black Squadron as they approach Athulla, the site of the First Order’s suspected child conscription operation.

“Enemy star destroyer approaching, be careful. The mission is to get to the planet, be prepared to retreat if necessary,” General Organa instructs from back on the base.

“Understood, General,” Poe Dameron says through the comlink.

The _Finalizer_ falls abruptly out of hyperspace in front of them, and several of the pilots swear over the comms. The star destroyer opens its starfighter wings and ship after ship emerges, falling in line next to each other.

The black swarm of TIE fighters advance on them like a storm, moving together in one unbroken line at least twenty ships across. They're vastly outnumbered, easily, and Rey feels a cold unease fall over her.

“Black Leader, what are they doing?” General Organa’s voice crackles through the comms.

“I- I don’t know, I’ve never seen it before,” Poe replies. Rey doesn’t want to admit that he sounds shaken. “They’re all in formation, dozens of them.” Rey’s grip on her ship’s console tightens, awaiting orders.

All the enemy ships fire at once, swooping and advancing erratically, no longer in any pattern, but easily evading asteroids and debris. They look like swarming insects and begin picking off the Resistance ships one by one.

“We’re taking heavy fire. How many are they?”

“They appear to have launched both full hangars.”

“Switch to evasive maneuvers and divert power to rear deflectors. Try to shake them,” Poe says. Rey takes out two more fighters but immediately two more move to take their place.

“We can’t afford any more losses; all pilots retreat immediately,” the General says through the comlinks. They were losing already, and Rey’s ship was starting to take damage.

“Don’t have to tell us twice, ma’am. All squadrons retreat, let’s get out of here.”

Rey swerves harshly, dodging enemy fire and stray asteroids. Resistance fighters begin to jump to hyperspace, leaving light trails in their wake. But she notices the lone TIE silencer on its own on the defensive, dodging the stray fire of laser cannons, and she seizes her chance. She re-routes her deflectors and approaches, veering out of the way of the enemy fighters.

Then she feels _him_ , her suspicions confirmed. The sound of Ben Solo’s heavy breathing all of a sudden fills the cockpit of her X-wing as if he were right next to her, breathing down her neck.

“Rey,” he says.

“Black Six, do you copy? Jump to hyperspace now,” the Squadron leader crackles through her helmet.

The wall closing them off from each other for almost the last year cracks and ruptures, like a rock has shifted and the dam has opened, all barriers crumbling, until she finally starts to see him before her from behind the red viewport of his silencer.

Her heart stutters at the sight of him before she can stop it. He’s alive, here right in front of her. Her reaction is physiological, she tells herself. Some part of her, deep in the back of her mind, has belonged to him since their bond, regardless of her own feelings. She hadn’t realised how hollow a part of her had been without it until now. 

Rey cuts off her comlink.

“I thought you were dead,” she says, trying not to show her relief in her voice.

He looks paler since they last met on the _Supremacy_ , sullen even. Like he is less of a man now, despite his more intricate armour befitting his status. He has a high collar up to his chin and plated armour covering his shoulders, but his hair is longer, bordering on unkempt.

“What will it take to stop this?” Rey tries, vying for a little more time. Maybe time for the Resistance, maybe time for herself.

“You know what it takes. I don't hold anything against you, Rey. We could still end this.”

He waves his hand and all the TIE Fighters stop at once, as if suspended in the air. The remaining Resistance pilots quickly seize their chance and jump to hyperspace, leaving Rey behind. It's just him and her.

She looks at the planet below them, thinking of the thousands of children down there, afraid like she has been. He wouldn’t honestly end all of it for her, would he? Why now, after everything?

“You know I can't,” she says.

When all the fighters have gone, Rey punches the hyperdrive and jumps too, leaving the black and red silencer behind in a blur before he can react, and arrives bumpily at the periphery of the lush green planet Thila.

Unlike the last time she left him, he is still there, lingering on the edge of her conscious. The line of string connecting them, even if taut and strained at their distance, stays intact.

  


* * *

  


Rey docks at Thila Command’s landing bay. The base had been used briefly in the time of the Alliance but was since abandoned. The Resistance relocated to the planet after the evacuation of D’Qar and made use of its old ships and tech left behind. The New Republic’s handouts had become a scarcity, and Rey had taken to restoring grounded old fighters during downtime.

She disembarks, pulling off her helmet and is met by Jessika Pava, with BB-8 trailing behind, chirping worriedly.

“What happened, Rey?”

“My ship got hit. The comms dropped and I had trouble getting to hyperdrive.” She feels guilty at how easily the lie falls from her lips. What else can she say? She wanted to see if Ben Solo was still alive?

“You scared us for a second. Come on, they’re waiting for you.”

What’s left of the Resistance High Command is gathered in the control room, mostly around a large display screen replaying the encounter. Finn spots her and lights up, visibly relieved.

“They knew we were coming,” General Caluan Ematt begins. “Jinata Security must’ve uncovered one of our intelligence ops.”

“We can’t keep being so reckless. Our numbers are weak as it is. We can’t all have child slaves inflating our numbers,” General Organa replies.

“Did someone at least get a pop at the commander in the flashy silencer? Who even was that?” Jessika asks.

“It was him-” Rey cuts herself off. “The Supreme Leader. He was controlling the ships from there somehow. I’m sure of it.”

General Organa exhales a breath she had been holding, but Rey still feels uneasy withholding information.

“You're right,” Finn interjects. “Fighters can never fly in formations like that, they’re just not trained for it. Three or four, maybe up to six, but the whole fleet at once is unheard of.”

“Not to mention impossible,” Poe Dameron says from the command desk. “The bucketheads couldn’t coordinate a Gamorrean two-step if their lives depended on it, nevermind a whole fleet. It was almost like a-”

“A hive mind.” General Organa looks concerned, and unease passes over the Resistance. “I need to speak with Rey, excuse us.” Rey nods at her and follows as they step out. The door hisses as it closes behind them.

“Was it him?” she asks, once they are out of earshot.

Rey affirms her suspicions.

The General pauses for a second in thought, her brow creased.

“I don’t want to alarm the others, but in your reading, have you encountered Jedi battle meditation?” Rey shakes her head. “It’s an old Jedi ability, my brother and I studied it many years ago in the war. The user can instill morale and power in their allies, but the Sith had their own perversion of it called Battle Coordination.

“The Sith used it to dominate the minds of their troops, bending their minds to their will and controlling them, influencing the outcome of the battles entirely. Does this sound like what you saw today? Was it him?” Leia looks for a moment more like a concerned mother and less like a military commander, more exhausted and afflicted than when they had first met over a year ago.

“Maybe, I-” Rey recalls the encounter today. The enemy ships moved in tandem with one another, seemingly heteronomously, with Ben Solo at the centre of the storm.

She suddenly feels apprehensive talking to the General about such matters, when she knows her mind could be leaving them vulnerable. He could enter her mind at any moment, she would have no way of anticipating it.

“General Organa, I have something to confess to you.”

Rey doesn’t want to keep the link between them like some sordid secret, so she confides in the General. Leia paces for a moment, mulling it over.

“It’s not unheard of. There’s a chance you could separate yourself again, but perhaps it could be of use to us. Finding his location is a priority if he is capable of such strong abilities.”

Rey understands what the General is asking, but doesn’t know if she is able to do it.

“But… be careful, Rey. An open connection to him could be detriment to the Resistance. We don’t know how powerful he has become.”

“I'll try,” Rey says, and the General dismisses her.

  


* * *

  


She waits for several days for the bond to wane and weaken, but it does little to cut the connection between her and the Supreme Leader. She feels him constantly, and, to her dismay, his lingering presence comforts her, as if some part of her had been lost for the last year and she is whole again.

Rey expects to hear his voice like she did in her ship, startling and surrounding her at any moment. She feels wary of looking over any sensitive information, though she knows, logically, he cannot see it.

She attempts to meditate, despite thinking it a futile exercise. She feels little affiliation to the Jedi or their teachings anymore, but still tries to search the dark corners of her mind for something that could help her stoke the bond, either to kill it or to kindle it. Either way to dispel the anxiety of anticipating connecting to him at any time.

Rey quiets her mind, sitting cross-legged on the cool stone floor of her quarters as Luke once showed her. She blocks out the activity of people scurrying about their work from behind her door, and the cold, damp air in the underground base within the planet’s catacombs until she feels nothing. No anger or resentment, no strong emotions one way or another, just nothingness.

She feels Ben Solo on the edge of her consciousness like a distant star, and she allows him to pass through her, until he is visible in front of her when she opens her eyes. She stands immediately, defensive, and his eyes track her movement.

“Why are you here?” he asks, his voice like gravel but not aggressive, not to her.

“I came to talk,” Rey says. She can’t see his surroundings, she hopes he cannot see hers. She just sees him, clear as the dawn. “About that planet, please, this isn’t you.”

“Did my mother ask you to do this?” he asks, turning away, his face unreadable.

“No, wait,” Rey calls out, reaching out to grab him. She catches the frayed edge of his robe between her fingers before he is gone.

  


* * *

  


Rey dreams that night of catching glimpses of stark black hair and dark robes against pale skin, following her where she goes, around corridors and when she is alone. It’s a comforting presence in her dreams, not sinister, like being trailed by her own long shadow in the warm evening sun.

Maybe Leia was right, Rey deliberates in the morning. She could be leaving them defenseless while she sleeps at night and he could be invading her mind. Her solitude would almost welcome it, like she would welcome shade from the desert sun.


	2. Chapter 2

Since their last encounter with the First Order, the Resistance has on the most part laid low and gathered intelligence, and the troops all settle into a busy routine. There’s too much to be done for so few personnel.

Rey is in the mess hall looking out for Finn as she often spends her mornings with him, and some evening meals too. Sometimes she and Poe are invited to dine with the generals and talk intel, which sometimes she does, and other times she eats alone.

“So I’ve nearly finished the upgrades on my RZ-1,” Poe says as Rey sits down with her rations. “All I need now is a wingman to fly out with me, test the old rust bucket out.”

“Who would you even take with you? Unlike you, no one around here has a deathwish, you know.” Jessika says, stabbing at her veg-meat accusingly. “If you haven’t fixed the glitch in hyperdrive yet, I’m certainly not going to be stuck out in space with you like a sitting mynock.”

“Are you kidding? It’s retro, I used to fly one as a kid-”

“It’s a piece of junk,” Jessika interrupts. “Sorry, captain.”

Rey slips out of focus of the conversation, and feels as though she is doused in ice cold water. She knows the rush of masculinity in the air, cool and intense, and senses his presence. She doesn’t acknowledge the tall figure on her periphery, sullen and dark, and brushes it off as best she can. He has no right, she thinks, to pry on her through the day.

“You have no taste Jess,” Poe scoffs, appalled, and Rey blinks back into awareness.

Rose Tico suppresses a laugh across the table from them.

“In times like these, we all need a bit of fun now and then,” Finn starts, Poe’s face lighting up. Finn raises a hand. “However, you will be going alone.” Jessika snorts.

“I’d come with you,” Rey says around a mouthful of caf as if to spite him being here. She’s allowed to joke with her comrades, isn’t she? Knowing that he’s there watching shouldn’t stop her.

“Atta girl!” Poe beams, swinging his arm comfortably around her and squeezing her cheek in affection. As Poe’s skin touches hers, a shock runs through her, a flash of burning hot anger, and she looks in time to see Ben seething with rage, then he is gone.

Rey doesn’t feel guilty as she finishes her rations, glazing over cheerful talk of parts and paint. She has no reason to be.

  


* * *

  


The bond drags her unwillingly to his quarters once again days later. The room is a different one to the last time she saw it, larger and more sparsely furnished; she might even say unwelcoming. A large viewport overlooks the workings of the First Order base, machines of war and black starfighters and weaponry, vastly more numerous than the Resistance’s own. Rey looks out to see a sea of stormtroopers and officers, monochrome but for few streaks of bleak red. They move automatically in formation like parts of a machine across the hangar, and Rey tries to note the number of ships, infantry units, anything that could be useful, but she’s taken aback by the sheer number of troops and the First Order’s rapid expansion. They wouldn’t stand a chance in a fair fight.

Rey turns to scan the room as quick as she can for any identifying information, not knowing how long she has, looking for something pertaining to his location, an identifying planet beyond the viewport, anything of value lying around. Ben stands from where he was sitting and his eyes track her warily, perhaps rightly so. He puts greyish rations down on a table, half-eaten from her interruption.

There’s a low shelf tucked away in a corner, bare but for a few aged books, that catches her eye, one tiny blip proving a person inhabits the space.

“Are those real books?” she asks before he can speak.

“You’re surprised?”

“No, I just didn’t expect it. Do you mind?”

Ben rolls his shoulders in a shrug, and Rey walks over to it, kneeling to look properly. He follows, keeping a distance from her but still watching. She pulls a book out by the spine. It’s so old, the binding is fragile and fraying, and the corners are rounded from use, but still in great condition. It's the most atypical thing in the room, maybe on the whole base. It doesn’t befit this cold sterile environment with its clean-cut durasteel and whirring technologies. There’s even a handwritten inscription on the first page scratched out in scrawling Aurebesh, and Rey runs her thumb over the ink lightly, like the page could fall apart under her touch, then she replaces it.

There’s one book detailing the history of the Mandalorians, one on the pioneering of the first hyperspace lanes, things Rey never expected she would see, especially not here.

“How did you get these?” she asks, eyes wide in awe.

“I can get whatever I want now.”

“Have you read them all? Which is the best one?”

Ben hesitates, then leans over her, pulling out one with fading royal blue cloth bound over the cover. It could even be a Jedi book, and thick embossed letters read _The Great Scourge of Malachor_.

“You would like it-”

Rey might have stayed and indulged her naïve inquisitiveness a little longer were it not for the harsh artificial interruption of his comlink.

“ _Supreme Leader Ren, your presence is requested by command_.”

She stands suddenly, brought back to where she is.

“I shouldn’t have come, sorry,” she says, replacing the book then closing her eyes, forcing herself to breathe deeply, focusing on going back.

  


* * *

  


Back on the base, Rey makes immediately to find General Organa to relay what little information she found.

“This time it wasn’t in your control, seeing him. Please be careful, Rey. Your bond could be leaving us vulnerable, it could be leaving _you_ vulnerable,” Leia warns. “I fear he’s more powerful than we know.”

He didn’t look powerful, eating alone in his room with its hard furnishings, desperate for a human connection that he would talk to an enemy about old books.

“I will, General,” Rey assures her.

  


* * *

  


Rey rolls over in her cot, pulling the sheet further over her bare shoulders after feeling a sudden chill, then, brought into full awareness, her eyes snap open at an unfamiliar groan beside her. Ben shifts next to her in the bed- his bed, she realises, the sheets foreign but softer than the reclaimed sheets on the base that could well be older than she is. Rey holds her breath, instinctively freezing up.  
He’s facing her, his hot breath ghosting over her skin and raising goosebumps on the back of her neck. His eyelashes are long, fanned out against his cheeks and his hair is messily strewn across his face. He looks weary; blue bruises lie in the pits under his eyes and his cheekbones jut out from under his skin, making him look even more angular and unusual. Rey isn’t sure how she didn’t notice before now.

A flash of something dark crosses her mind. He looks vulnerable, and she feels a rush of adrenaline, realising she has the upper hand.

She could extricate herself from him, try to access a datapad, find any information she can feed back to the Resistance, but it doesn't seem fair. War isn't lying in bed with an enemy and then taking advantage of their vulnerability. Not to her, at least.

Instead she allows her breathing to even and slow, lulled by the lurch of the hyperdrive. Their night cycles must have lined up; that must be the explanation for this. He shifts slightly, then his thigh is lined up and touching hers, and his chest meets her shoulder. His body is taut and unyielding, but feeling another’s warmth and life next to her is a comfort completely foreign to her.

Rey had never felt much of a desire for a mate. Her small, solitary life was all she knew. But this she begins to understand, the comfort of skin touching skin, a warm body reminding her that she isn’t alone in this world when she wakes in the night. It’s a longing and a hunger she hadn’t felt before, and that’s what possesses her to inch closer to him. She dares to smooth a wisp of stray hair out of his face, growing bolder when he doesn’t stir, dancing her fingers lightly over his stern features, not quite touching, lingering on the pale ridge across his cheek.

Ben’s breathing starts to pick up pace then, until his chest rises and falls erratically. His brow furrows further and he lets out a groan. She pulls her hand away as if burned. He tosses for a moment until his eyes struggle open and his whole body tenses up, struggling to breathe and clambering upright.

Noticing her watching him with wide eyes from the other side of his bed, Ben startles, then avoids her gaze. Rey knows she shouldn’t be here, and how she would feel if he sat and watched her wake in a cold sweat from one of her nightmares. The ones where she dreams about a shuttle flying away without her, about watching children being taken away and being unable to stop it, or about cutting him with Luke’s lightsaber until he can’t move anymore.

Rey panics, scuttling away from him until her feet touch the solid floor.

“No,” he says, voice raspy from sleep, then exhales a deep breath. “Stay, please.” He moves back to allow more space for her.

She wishes she couldn't empathise with him. If she had any control over it, she wouldn't see any parts of herself in him nor him in her. She wishes she hadn't felt what it was like to wake up on her own afraid and cold so often. Tentatively, she climbs back into his cot.

Maybe they can pretend just for tonight they're not enemies, Rey reasons with herself. It would do no good to leave him alone, when she hardly wants to be alone herself. He knows loneliness like she does. He feels like she does. He feels anger and fear and isolation like any other person.

So she curls her lean body into his, and is surprised that despite their vast physical difference they fit comfortably. She doesn't know how to give physical comfort, or why it soothes her seemingly down to the bones to be near to him, relieving an ache she had forgotten was there. The bond that runs through both their veins makes her light-headed at the contact, and she snakes a shaking hand over his wide torso.

Rey wonders when the last time was someone held him like this. When was the last time someone held her? She was so small that she can't recall it. Maybe he was too, she doesn't know. She hardly knows him at all.

His heavy, audible breathing relaxes her, and tension finally leaves her when it slows, then his face goes slack in almost sleep. He might as well be a stranger to her, his expression nearly unrecognisable. He doesn’t look like a killer now. His skin is pallid and smooth except for the indent of his scar, now turning white instead of pink.

“I'm so tired,” Ben says, so small, almost a whisper, and presses his head closer to her, fitting into the crook of her neck.

She is too. Before long she follows him, then awakes in her own bed, light years away.


	3. Chapter 3

Rey dreams after that night, and most nights thereafter, of touching and being touched, of his warm body on hers. Her mind betrays her with thoughts of him constantly interrupting her waking life too, and it starts to take its toll on her, draining her energy.

Finn had found an unused store room on the far side of the base where no one would disturb them to turn into a sparring hall for them. He teaches Rey how the First Order were trained to use a blaster so she can improve her defense, how to take one apart if she needs to, and sometimes they go up to the surface to hit targets, while she helps him improve his melee with a range of improvised weapons they can find. Doing something physical has stopped her from going stir crazy; maybe it’s the same with him too.

One late night when they’re sparring, fighting through exhaustion but both refusing to be the first to call it quits, Rey swerves to avoid a mis-aimed blow from his wooden staff and loses her footing. She skids for a few seconds, tumbling to the ground and grazing the skin across her knee.

Finn rushes to check if she’s okay, dropping his weapon like it’s on fire, gushing apologies. Rey brushes him off, assuring him she’s fine, but wobbles when she puts pressure on her leg. She lets him walk her back to her room, giving her more support than she really needs, to get off without going to med bay over a little cut. She just wants to get in the sonic and go to bed.

Rey steps out of the ‘fresher, pulling the light shirt she wears to bed over her head, leaving her leg wraps off to let her wound get some air. Her hair is down and messy; she has allowed it to grow since leaving Jakku, and it’s longer than she’s ever had it, just grazing her shoulder blades. She startles as she see Ben sitting on her cot, waiting for her. She hadn’t sensed his presence like she used to. It’s getting easier for them to seep into each other and it unnerves her.

“Can I not get a moment to myself?” Rey’s voice wavers a little, despite her efforts to remain cold.

Ben doesn’t appear disconcerted. He’s not paying her much mind, instead looking around her quarters. She suddenly feels self conscious; he’s fully clothed with his coat and armour. His masculine energy in such a private, feminine space unsettles her, and his mother’s warning echoes in the forefront of her mind. She looks around for something to cover herself while he is distracted.

“So, the Resistance chose a new planetary base for their operations,” Ben remarks. “Cool climate, high humidity. High air pressure.” He pauses. “Are we underground?” Is he smirking?

“Stop it. Get out, I’m too tired for this.”

“I’d guess an arboreal planet perhaps. An old Rebel base?” He stands, walking over to tap his knuckles against the stone walls. “You did the same to me, it’s only fair.”

Rey would reach for her quarterstaff if she believed it would do any good. But his tone is the same flat low tone he always takes with her; she can’t tell if he’s teasing her or actually trying to find her, to kill her. She has no way of knowing.

He glances over at her, then notices the graze smeared across her leg peeking out from beneath her shirt, no longer bleeding but congealing in uneven patches of blackish red.  
“You’re hurt?” Ben’s voice wavers.

“It doesn’t matter. You need to leave.”

“Where is your bacta? It could leave a mark, sit down.”

“I don’t care, don’t tell me what to do.” Ben begins searching through her storage drawers regardless, ignoring her. He’s infuriating. He must know that he fills her with burning frustration and something akin to rage. He probably wants her to hate him.

Her journal is in the next drawer he opens, and something stupid and selfish and dark possesses her. In a spurt of adrenaline she crosses the room to him, grabs him by the hair and kisses him, closed mouthed and soft, desperate to do anything, to stop him, to get him to leave, to make him stay.

Ben pulls away, breathing in a deep breath of surprise, and a part of her delights in her triumph over him, that she could get him to react like a human. Before saying anything else, he lowers his head to meet her lips again, and it feels like that first night on Ahch-To. The most minute connections of each other’s skin feel like tiny electric shocks. Rey can feel every point they are connected: his hands holding her still by her shoulders, gripping on as if she might run away at any second, her finger catching an ear beneath his hair, their noses pressed almost painfully against each other from their gracelessness.

Overcome with dizziness and bliss, Rey wonders if she is dreaming. She could be succumbing to an invasion of her mind, she could be giving up the location of their base. She might not be here at all; she could be anywhere in the galaxy if she feels like this, she doesn't care, and the bond between them sings with delight.

Ben almost winces as he pulls his mouth free from hers and Rey is brought abruptly back to reality. She could kill him for breaking the spell, and she starts considering it, until, after a hesitation he replaces his mouth swiftly on the corner of her mouth, kissing her feverishly down her jaw, placing his lips on the taut lines of muscle in her neck, then back up to kiss her again with a gentleness she wasn’t sure he was still capable of.

She can’t keep doing this. It’s almost unbearable, his fickle moods and unwarranted tenderness. Seeing him fleetingly and being haunted by him the rest of the night. She wishes he could just be in black and white so that she could put an end to it. If he found her and killed her at least it would be over, she would know his heart once and for all. Anything would be better than this limbo of uncertainty of him being distant then warm, waiting for him to come to her, or waiting for him to attack.

“Where are you?” Rey whispers, imploring, unable to stop the words from leaving her mouth. He pulls away from her, his dark eyes boring into hers, murky and unreadable. Then he's gone, the connection harshly severed. Rey is left alone in the clinical cold of her quarters, feeling feverish and defeated.

She tends to her wound and eventually succumbs to sleep.

  


* * *

  


The space he used to occupy in her, after that, is closed off and she feels nothing of him. There’s a cold wall in her mind where he once lingered. Rey continues with her life, hoping the bond will atrophy like an unused muscle and her mind can belong to herself again, no matter how hollow or alone that might be. She shadows the General at her request, compiles recon for her to read, no longer as wary of betraying Resistance intelligence, and offers her opinion when asked of it. She restores three fighters in a month working into the early morning, and spars with Finn when he has time, and the ache of her body is a welcome distraction.

When Finn is occupied, or when she wants to be alone, she writes, using equipment for a makeshift journal she found on Thila, having filled her old one some time ago,. Sometimes about what she has learned through her reading, transcribing interesting excerpts from her datapad, sometimes just logging the day-to-day happenings in the base. The landscape she drew on Jakku was far from picturesque, but she did love finding a new part or a broken droid she hadn’t seen and documenting it. But, eventually, she had seen almost all the starships in the Goazon Badlands, and she could probably draw the fissures in the Carbon Ridge from memory, even now.

Sometimes she ventures to the surface to map out the outlines of Thila’s towering mountains. The planet is rich with green and blue hues and she feels as though she won’t have enough time to take it all down before the Resistance has to relocate. So she sketches until the sun goes down most nights, then some after, describing the blankets of snow on the peaks, or the vast rainforests on the edge of the horizon until her hand aches. She packs her satchel and walks back to the base.

Rey wishes it was enough, that he had left her life again and she could move on. Instead, she is plagued by dreams of him almost every night.

Having already resigned herself to losing out to his twisted dreams for tonight, bone-weary, Rey goes straight to her quarters. Despite her best efforts, she still tosses and turns in her cot, restless and uneasy. While she’d thought the closure of their connection would ease her dreams, it appears to do the opposite.

She dreams of him touching her roughly, unlike anyone else ever has. He undresses her quickly, shedding her leggings first and running his hands up her thighs, gripping her flesh tight. She feels like a ragdoll as he flips her over onto her stomach easily as if she weighs nothing, and she feels shame burn in her that she likes it. Ben bears his weight down on her, trapping her beneath him, and she truly is helpless.

His fingers enter her and she groans. He feels foreign, so unlike her own slender fingers on the rare moments she took to herself before this back on Jakku, where pleasure wasn't worth the loss of perspiration. He is so rough and fast, not treating her like a virgin, but more like a whore on some outskirt spaceport. It isn’t enough, she wants more of him, and Rey finds herself calling out to him.

“Ben, Ben, please. Do it, _please_.”

He stops, removing his fingers, and Rey feels exposed waiting for him, then finally, _finally_ , he enters her.

In her dream he doesn't hurt her. He feels like he fits her perfectly, like some being crafted him to fit her innately.

Then he ruts into her, deep and sudden, as if they were animals, his hips hitting the back of her legs with each thrust further into her. Her pleasure builds quickly in the pit of her stomach until she feels close, and she groans his name over and over, then suddenly-

Rey is awake, back in her bed, flushed and panting and left unsatisfied and alone.

Each night follows similarly. One night he pins her to a wall while he has his way with her, the following day she feels the phantom press of his hands on her wrists. Another, he pushes her to her knees and she uses her mouth on him shamelessly.

Rey’s exhaustion begins to bleed into the next day, so much so that those close to her can notice, at least. Poe comments on her skin being pale and eyes red, and the General relieves her from duties early to rest. She keeps to herself but doesn’t retire to her quarters until late in the hope of a dreamless night. Each night she begins to resent him more, for being able to seep his depraved desires into her mind while she sleeps, while she is unable to do anything to retaliate. She hates that she misses catching a glimpse of his dark hair, or his gaze burning a fire in hers. Or the small tug in the back of her mind reminding her that he is there, like a taut line of wire.

  


* * *

  


Rey locks the door behind her, dims the lights and sits cross-legged her cot, forgetting the Resistance and the war and all of it. She can’t live like this any longer, plagued by phantom thoughts and desires. She needs to end this once again.

She doesn't allow nothingness to flow through her. She isn’t a neutral being; she feels the drive to do good, to help and to fix, but she also feels selfishness and self preservation, as she supposes anyone does. She’s hardly a Jedi and she doesn’t need to reign in her mind accordingly.

She thinks of how she wounded him and his hot blood melted into white snow, and of how she could have shot him down and sent his starfighter hurtling through space in a thousand pieces. It’s a means to an end.

Rey drifts to thoughts of him in her bed as she dreamt, the brush of his hair on the back of her neck and the indents his hands left on her thighs. She could have lived comfortably without it if she hadn’t tasted want and lust as she had. She was changed irreversibly by him and resents it. She allows her mind to drown in passing thoughts of her wants and desires with him at the centre of them. Her hand moves to touch herself through her clothes, rubbing herself roughly like she’s wanted him to.

Then, gradually, she can see lava and sulphur clouds and chaos in front of her, mirroring her murky thoughts, and a dark fortress rises towards the skies in two towering prongs. It comes clearer into her vision, pulling her towards it. Beneath that, under the foundations, she sees a swallowing darkness buried deep within the rocks.


	4. Chapter 4

The Sith cave, the darkness, and her sky high view of the castle above disappears, and Rey falls, landing inelegantly on the ground, and Ben Solo turns towards her. She picks herself up and composes herself. They appear to be inside the fortress she saw. It’s ceilings are high and the walls are dark, and other than the two of them there is no one to be seen.

“Aren’t you warm?” Rey asks before he can get in the first word. The hall is stifling, and his armour is thick and dark and not conducive to the flow of air. Rey could almost laugh, imagining him enduring the humid air like this, waiting for her.

“Yes. The repulsor screens are beginning to wear thin, it seems. There is no use repairing them now. The mining on this planet has been abandoned for years; it is almost uninhabited.” He hasn’t looked her in the eye yet, she notices. “No one has stepped inside this castle since the Civil War. The Sith cave it was built on wards off the native dwellers and non-Force sensitives.”

There is a long table between them, perhaps made from obsidian. The chairs had been left haphazardly; no one had bothered to push them back, she realises, in abandoning the castle. It makes Rey shudder from the ill feeling, of remnants from another time. He begins to pace in her direction.

A thin layer of soot or ash covers nearly every surface, almost invisible, and the harsh smell of carbon fills the air, inescapable. Every cell in her body protests at her being here, the sweltering heat, the smog in her lungs, yet here she is, for him.

Ben steps towards a tall viewport and looks out.

“Don’t you feel it, Rey?”

Rey looks out to where Ben is looking, beyond the calderas and the brimstone to where another planet partially eclipses the sun. There are no pinpricks of stars beyond the fire and smoke. The volcanic planet feels almost isolated in the vastness of space. She does feel it, the unrest and darkness below her feet. It whispers to her, encouraging her, just like the part of her deep down that told her to try and find him here. If she really considers it, she even felt it going to sleep at night in the desert, hungry with tears stinging in her eyes, or solitary nights longing for him, starving for his touch.

“The two gas giants are constantly at war, pulling this planet between them, changing its planetary path. They’re the reason it is in turmoil.”

There’s so many things Rey wants to say. Least of all that she has missed him, has worried about him, has tried to stoke that small flame in the back of her mind that connects them so she could see him again, to no avail. How she can’t trust him, but he is the only person she can be truthful with. How she wishes she didn’t see him again after leaving him for dead on that wrecked star destroyer. How she hates him for making her choose between what she should do and what she wants, how she wishes her life were simple again, just plain survival.

Before she realises it, Ben has closed the distance between then and is looking at her as if she is some rare artefact he’s never seen before, as if her face is betraying everything she’s feeling at once. Then his hand reaches for her clenched fist, his thumb skirting over the thin skin on the back of her hand.

“I would give you an identity. Conviction. Can I show you?” he asks, his voice small. “What I want for us.”

Ben presses his fingers gently to her temple and an image swirls to the front of her mind. She’s seated on a high throne next to him, tall and proud. He looks regal, otherworldly even, as if he actually befits his royal heritage. Thick black robes are pinned across his lapels and trail onto the floor. She is a spectator looking in on his vision, and she can’t take her eyes off this version of herself.

Her hair in his dream is longer than it is now and allowed to fall past her breasts, wild. She is wearing black armour, as he is. A thick black cowl covers her shoulders and drapes down to her knees, and her tabard is dark and of rough wool, splitting at her thighs and cinched at the waist with a grey belt. Her shoulders are covered with angular pads, and her body looks sharp and refined, maybe even powerful. She looks nothing like the scavenger girl she once was, what feels like a lifetime ago.

In the vision, Ben kneels in front of her and kisses her hand.

“Is this what you came here for, to get inside my head?” Rey asks, stepping away from him and breaking the spell. “To lure me here? You think a Sith cave will, what, win me over?”

He pauses for a moment, eyes like a storm.

“Maybe for you, maybe I came here for me, I- You make me want things I can’t have, want to do things I can’t do. You make me forget who I'm supposed to be. _Please_ , Rey.”

His face is alight with emotion. He feels just as vividly as she does, in a thousand colours, conflict and desire and drive, and it sets her veins on fire to be witness to it. She isn't alone; he feels what she does too. She isn't a Jedi, and neither is he, They don't need to suppress feelings of attachment and passion, and she couldn’t if she tried.

Rey wants to be able to blame Sith caves and the darkness of the planet for compelling her to kiss him, but it has always been inside her somewhere, even on Jakku. The same impulse that compelled her to go deeper, further into the dark depths of grounded starships, or to risk flying out alone to face the Supreme Leader of the First Order in open space. Her hand snakes around to ground herself on his neck and she tips her head up, her lips meeting his so gently.

Rey breathes him in, then her tongue betrays her by instinctively darting out to taste the soft flesh of his lip, as if he is the last drop of water on a blistering day. She stands up on the tips of her toes to vie for power, crushing harder into him, starving for him, snagging him slightly with her teeth, as if it would make him feel an ounce of what she’s had to suffer. His hands are wrapping around her slim waist, then pulling her even closer towards him until their hot bodies are flush, his rough armour digging into her.

She tilts her head and opens her mouth like she’s been dreaming of doing, and Ben’s tongue is pushing inside, tasting her like a starved beast. Rey moans and his fingers dig harder into her skin, then roam down to the hem of her tunic, then up so his hands can meet her bare skin.

It's a strange sensation, having another’s hands moving over her body, touching her skin that isn't as soft as it could have been through sand and sun, untouched by anyone but him. Rey feels her body react to him immediately; her hips roll towards his and goosebumps ripple in the wake of his touch as it skims across her firm stomach.

Rey gasps as he presses his hardness against her thigh, a foreign feeling that’s almost unexpected, as if she forgot he was a human male like any other, born to a human mother and human father like she was. She places her hand on him through his pants and presses down and his hips stutter against her. Rey feels an odd rush of power. She did that to him. The thought causes a heavy weight to settle in the pit of her stomach.

“Stop. This isn’t one of your dreams; you’re not mating with me like some animal. I came here to stop this.”

Ben stops, and Rey immediately feels regret, falling back onto the flats of her feet. Confusion crosses his face, then settles into realisation, and his mouth draws up into a half smirk. He looks more like his father than she’d ever seen.

“What dreams are you talking about? I’ve never shared any thoughts like that with you, Rey.”

“You’re lying,” she says, indignant.

He hasn’t lied to her before, and she knows it’s true. It was her own dreams, her imagining Ben holding her down, rutting into her like an animal in heat. She tries to tame her horror and turns away from him, burning with shame, even hotter than before.

Ben leans to kiss her again regardless, as if now that he’s tasted her, he can’t be sated. His lips quiver against hers like he’s kissing her for the first time again and his hands encompass her waist, solid and comforting.

He lifts her up, taking all of her weight easily, his firm arms supporting her and lifting her onto the long table behind them, easing her back onto the surface.

“Please,” he gasps, and when Rey nods he works at pulling off her boots, then her tunic, wasting little time. A small lick of desire courses through Rey in the knowledge that he is unable to help himself around her, despite what he might have came here for.

He kisses more and more of the exposed flesh as he continues sweetly, until he’s sliding down her leg wraps and his mouth runs over the tender inside flesh of her thigh, pushing her legs apart to fit himself between them as he kneels before her.

Rey keens, sensitive. No one has touched her there before. Not even the sun has kissed the skin between her legs. He grazes her with his trembling hands and his mouth, his tongue darting tentatively up her thigh towards her cunt, and she squirms under his attentive gaze. Does he know he’s the first to do this?

He’s fumbling, surprisingly unsure, waiting for her permission. “Can I?” he asks her, his breath so close to her making her shiver.

“Yes,” she breathes, and then he’s planting soft little kisses on her, mouthing his way up to her clit and using his tongue, gently, like he could break her.

Rey gasps and her hips rise up, pushing him harder into her. Her hands grasp onto locks of silky black hair, holding him there. Pleasure sparks through her, but it isn’t enough. She moves more erratically beneath him, desperate for more and groaning in frustration until she pushes him away, sitting up.

Her eyes are like fire and they bore into him. She grasps wildly at the clasp on his belt, then his face drops in realisation, knowing what she wants.

His belt hits the floor with a clang, then Ben takes off his coat, folding it somewhat and placing it behind her for her to lie on, and Rey huffs out half a laugh at his consideration. She leans up to fumble with his pants while he takes off his tunic, then he unfastens his armguards. Rey’s eyes follow the line running down his neck cutting into his chest, redder and deeper than the other small litterings of scars across his torso. She kisses it in a silent atonement.

Tipping her head up by her chin, he kisses her again, like he’s never been fed and she is his only sustenance. It could be just the two of them in the universe for all Rey knows. The waves of lava and curls of smoke beyond the castle walls fade out to nothingness; she can only focus on him, drowning in him. She deepens the kiss, wanting to taste more of him, to be able to trace the ridges in his teeth and the bitten notches in his lips from memory if she has to.

Getting more eager the more he holds back, kissing her too gently, Rey pulls down the waistband of his pants enough to expose his cock. He’s already hard for her, and he stops, looking down on her and watching her shaking hands closely as she touches him so softly. Her mouth runs dry when she curls her fist around him, not quite knowing what to do now that she has him before her but just following instinct. She runs her fingers up and down the length of him experimentally, and Ben gasps when she rubs over the silky skin on the tip.

Tightening her grip and getting bolder, Rey revels in drawing out small noises from him, her head spinning and lust coiling in her belly. She lowers herself back down then, spreading her thighs and baring herself to him. This is her, if he wants her, scrawny and stubborn and wanting and willing to trust him.

Ben steadies himself then enters her so, so slowly, inch by agonising inch, and her tightness begins to accommodate him. Rey’s eyes clench shut from the overwhelming sensation, something completely new to her.

“Look at me,” Ben says, and she does. His hair is matted to his forehead with sweat and he’s panting like he’s just fought a duel. Rey wonders if she looks as disheveled as he does.

The burning stretch of him soon gives way to pleasure, and she feels full and feverish as he bottoms out inside her. He moans loudly above her as he seats himself in all the way.

Rey feels so vulnerable yet powerful. She's trusting him to do this to her, allowing him to make her feel good and whole, but she could drown in the sight of him, in his sounds of pleasure that she has caused. It gives her the strength to begin to move with him inside her and she tries to fuck herself back onto him, wanton.

Ben begins to pull out of her then and moves to fill her up completely over and over, each thrust taking the wind from her lungs. The weight of him fucking into her shifts the table and unsettles the dust. His slow, erratic rhythm keeps her guessing and gasping when he starts to fuck her deeper, or stops to pull all the way out and enters her again so slowly, his eyes closing like he’s inside her for the first time. It’s better than how she had imagined even in her darkest dreams; she feels whole and warm and wanted and she doesn’t ever want it to end. She wants to be trapped in a limbo of feeling this with him, of feeling completed and blissful, never to be alone again.

He leans over her, draping his whole body across her and surprising her with how tenderly he kisses her. He’s a heavy weight, and Rey feels small and overpowered, like she couldn’t move even if she wanted to. She kisses him back between heavy breaths, holding onto him as if she might fall and digging her fingernails into his flushed white skin, leaving indents like crescent moons next to constellations of dark freckles.

Ben grabs her by the hips, pulling out of her and making her gasp at the feeling of loss. He flips her over easily like she weighs nothing. He nudges himself at her wet entrance, frustratingly backing off when she leans back to meet him.

“Is this what you dreamed of?”

He rubs himself between her thighs that are slick too with her wetness, and Rey gasps when he ghosts past her clit, not quite touching her how she needs it.

She thought the change of position would make her feel dirty, like a bitch in heat, but it feels more intimate. His whole body is lined up against her, clinging to the sweat on her back and murmuring in her ear, and she can feel every agonising slide of him inside her when he moves, deeper than she thought possible.

Rey feels close to coming and reaches down to touch herself, her hand moving quick and erratic. Ben’s hand reaches around to join hers and they bring her over the edge together as she comes shaking in his arms.

Ben follows soon after. He buries his face in the crook of her neck, saying her name over and over into the bones in her spine, trembling.

Rey’s arms lose the strength to hold them both up and she collapses with him beside her.

Once the blood thrumming in her ears slows, Rey can hear again the gushing and hissing of the volcanic river beyond the castle walls, a low rumbling of a planet in unrest. All of it overpowered by Ben’s heavy breathing in her ear beginning to slow, soothing her.

“It's not too late to come with me,” Rey says, not able to turn to face him.

When he says nothing she speaks again. “There will always be a chance for you, and for us. But we can't keep on like this.”

He wraps his arm further around her waist, clinging onto her, burrowing further into the her hair and breathing her in, sweat and salt and all of it. He kisses down her neck, pulling blood to the surface of the skin, distracting her.

“We could leave, go somewhere,” she tries, only a half truth, but if he agreed she might even do it. He might have tempted her to give up her life to end this conflict and to save him, if he’d only say yes.

“I can’t,” Ben says finally, voice forlorn and low. “I have things I need to finish.”

Rey shudders, starting to feel colder, and she can hear voices from another world on the other side of the galaxy. Her world. She doesn’t want to leave him. She could stay nestled here with him, alone in this castle with nothing but each other.

“I’m tired of being alone,” she says.

“You won’t be, I promise you.”

Rey turns to face him, but it’s too late. She’s alone in her bed. She presses her fingers to a tender mark on her neck, a remnant of him.

  


* * *

  


Leia sends the full squad to Mustafar, but as Rey already knew, he is long gone.

  


* * *

  


Almost a month later, a distress signal is received through their private comms from Athilla.

They reach the planet without interception this time, and the ground squadron approaches the First Order base with caution, with a second team on standby in case of ambush, or worse. Rey squeezes Finn’s arm as the open the main door, unlocked. He looks paralysed with fear of what they might find.

The compound is deserted, there's no ships, no enemy presence, scans show no signs of explosives or structural weakness. They find the children in their beds as if awaiting orders, lying in wait like little time bombs. She wants to promise to find their families for them, but she can't. She coaxes them out with the promise the Resistance will protect them from being hurt again. Finn holds a child in each hand as they leave the compound behind, and Poe lets a girl try on his helmet. None of them look back.

On the shuttle leaving the planet, to the part of him that's always with her, Rey whispers “Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Project Resurrection: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Project_Resurrection  
> Sith Battle Coordination: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_meditation  
> Thila Command: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Thila_Command  
> Rey’s journal: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Rey%27s_survival_guide  
> Vader’s castle on Mustafar: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Darth_Vader%27s_castle
> 
> I took artistic liberties with anything in legends that didn't too have much detail, but I’m pretty new to SW mythology so please let me know if I screwed anything up. Concrit is welcome ♡
> 
> Thank you so much to thewayofthetrashcompactor for taking the time to beta for me ♡


End file.
